Bradley Associates Latest News

Fully 45% of Hong Kong’s middle-class couples have abandoned the idea of having a child anytime soon, according to a new survey, with the city’s high cost of living turning them off parenthood.

According to research commissioned by Citibank, nearly half of married respondents said the statement “Because having a kid is too expensive, my spouse and I have decided against having one/having another” “quite” or “totally” described their situation. Another 29% felt neutral about the statement, while only 26% of married respondents said it didn’t apply to them. The survey polled 1,000 adults in April aged 30-40 with monthly income between 20,000 and 50,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$2,580-US$6,450).

It found that Hong Kong’s high living costs also have kept people from the altar, with about 53% of middle-class unmarried respondents saying they were delaying marriage in order to try to save cash.

Cecilia Chan, who heads the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Social Work and Social Administration, said that such findings can be partly explained by the “outrageously unaffordable” prices for Hong Kong housing, which have surged 120% since 2008. According to Citibank’s research, the middle class in Hong Kong spend some 40% of their income on housing alone. A modest 650-square-foot apartment on Hong Kong Island, for example, would cost around US$1 million, according to government statistics.

SHANGHAI — China has taken another step toward loosening its capital controls and making its currency more freely convertible by approving the creation of a new kind of free trade zone here.

China’s State Council, or cabinet, said it was establishing a pilot zone in Shanghai to test some of the government’s financial overhauls, including interest rate liberalization and full convertibility of China’s currency, the renminbi, according to reports Thursday in the state-run news media.

Analysts say the free trade zone will not just promote interest rate liberalization and currency convertibility but will also allow “financial product innovation” and the raising of money abroad or investment in foreign stocks by corporations.

Since taking office this year, Prime Minister Li Keqiang has been promising bold changes aimed at overhauling the economy and improving the nation’s global competitiveness.

In May, a State Council meeting presided over by Mr. Li said that by the end of the year the government would outline a plan for full convertibility of the renminbi and make it easier for Chinese individuals to invest. Still, many analysts say they believe that China’s currency will not be fully convertible until 2015 to 2018.

“The State Council expects this experiment as an essential step towards upgrading China’s economy,” Qu Hongbin, an economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, said in a report on Thursday. “It also expects the pilot’s eventual national rollout.”

Small-cap stocks, by definition, are publicly traded companies with market capitalizations between $300 million and $2 billion (Investopedia). While a majority of these small companies chose to go public in an effort to raise additional capital to fund their growth, a small percentage of the listed companies turn out to be fraudulent; this in turn has created negative associations for all small cap stocks. In fact, when I first began research small cap investments, I couldn't help but recall scenes from "The Boiler Room" of financial advisors swindling ill-informed investors. However, as I began digging deeper into numerous small cap companies, my opinion changed and I began to see an exciting risk/reward proposition for investors who do their due diligence. Investors must realize that many of today's large cap stocks did not start off as billion dollar companies but instead appreciated in value over time.

There are many reasons why most individual investors largely overlook small cap stocks. It's been said that 80% of institutional research analyst dedicate their time to just 20% of all publicly traded stocks (FirstWilshire). The reason for the lack of institutional coverage is not a reflection of the quality of the companies but rather a resource issue. Institutions profit when transactions occur and are incentivized to publish reports on stocks with th...